SPAR CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
1.) Responses of crop plants to Ultraviolet-B radiation and to interactive
effects of climate variables. Agency: USDA UV-B Monitoring Network, Colorado
State University, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Rationale: The responses of crop yields to climate change including
ultraviolet-b radiation vary widely, depending on crop species, cultivar, soil
conditions and other locational effects. As agriculture production and
climate are intimately connected, its future is critical to regional and
national economies and to global food/fiber security. Therefore,
understanding agricultural response to climate change of earth system is
pivotal in providing decision support for stakeholders such as farm mangers,
governments and planners to meet the food and fiber needs of growing
world population. This project addresses our long-term goal of
understanding the interactive effects of environmental factors including UVb radiation on crop.
Objectives: We propose to use a process-level crop model for this
integration and impact assessment studies and naturally-controlled
environment facility for experimental studies. The objectives of this project
are:
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To improve accuracy of processes affected by environment in cotton
simulation model – GOSSYM, study climate change impacts and drive
GOSSYM using remotely-sensed environmental variables.
Delineate the effect of climate changes on cotton more accurately;
study the effects of UV-B and its interactions with other
environmental variables on corn and soybean.
Provide economic assessment of climate change impact on
cotton/agriculture production.
2.) Responses to climate change of C4 and C3 species native to Southcentral region. Agency: National Institute for Global Environmental Change
(NIGEC) as part of DOE.
Rationale: Climate change models project an increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration, air temperature, surface ozone and UV-B radiation, and
variation in precipitation patterns in the current century. Global climate
change would alter the vegetation patterns on earth’s surface. The impact
studies of projected climate change were mainly restricted to crop species.
Studies conducted so far to determine changes in vegetation pattern of
natural ecosystems, either through experimentation or modeling, were
based on the vegetative growth or biomass determined by photosynthesis of
the species. Several other plant physiological processes respond to changing
climates that determine plant adaptation. Under natural environments,
distribution and succession of a species is through reproduction, and
products of reproduction (seeds) play an important role in population
establishment. Research was not carried so far to study the effects of
climate change on reproduction of native species in US South-central region
in general and Mississippi in particular that include both C3 and C4 types.
Although increase in CO2 is known to increase biomass, we hypothesize that
increase in intensity, frequency and duration of temperature would reduce
the reproductive ability of the species native to Mississippi.
Objectives:
• Quantify photosynthesis, growth and seed-set as affected by elevated
CO2 and high temperature in selected C3 and C4 species native to
Mississippi.
• Quantify the interaction effects of CO2 and high temperature on C3 and
C4 species native to Mississippi.
• Identify differential responses of C3 and C4 species to climate change.
3.) Agricultural Response to Global Climate Change and its Impact on
Decision Support. Agency: NASA, Center through MSU-Geo-Resources Institute,
Mississippi State, MS, USA
Rationale:
Agriculture production and climate are intimately connected. Its future is
both critical to ecosystem services in the US and to global food/fiber
security. Therefore, understanding of agricultural response to climate
change of earth system is pivotal in providing decision support for
governments and planners to meet the food and fiber needs of growing
world population. Recent advances in remote sensing technology have
incorporated sensors into satellite payloads to detect climate variables
spatially and temporally at very fine resolution that were unachievable by
GCMs. Spatial scale inputs derived from satellite-based data such as solar
radiation, carbon dioxide, temperature, rainfall and soil moisture are
necessary to drive crop simulation models and for accurate yield estimates.
The predicted changes in CO2, temperature, rainfall and UV-B in future
climates can be imposed on the high resolution global data sets of these
variables. The data sets so developed can be used to provide input variables
to crop models to predict growth, development and yield more accurately.
The coupled crop/climate models with remotely sensed data can be used to
effectively detect the regions that will be vulnerable to projected change in
climate and help planners to devise strategies for mitigating the impacts of
climate change. We propose to use a process-level crop model for this
integration and impact assessment studies.
Objectives:
•
•
•
•
Improve accuracy of processes affected by environment in cotton
simulation model - GOSSYM.
To study climate change impacts and drive GOSSYM using remotelysensed environmental variables.
Delineate the effect of climate changes on cotton more accurately.
Provide economic assessment of climate change impact on
cotton/agriculture production.
4.) An approach to positively shift the production of rainfed soybean by
foliar application of glycine betaine. Agency: Mississippi Soybean Promotion
Board, Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station, Mississippi
State, MS.
Rationale: Abiotic stresses are serious threats to sustainable food
production. Drought is the number one barrier to profitable soybean
production in the USA and particularly in the humid southern parts of USA.
Several reports have shown that drought stress, both short-term and longterm, will severely reduce crop yield and soybean is not an exception. Yet,
no solution to this problem has been forth coming.
Objectives:
• To understand whether drought stress occurring during crop critical
growth stages can be alleviated by foliar applications of glycinebetaine.
• To understand on how glycine betaine application alters soybean crop
physiology, by measuring total leaf betaine content, stomatal
conductance, leaf water potentials, photosynthesis and osmotic
potentials and yield which are crop drought stress indicators.
• To examine whether any new stress proteins are produced in the leaves
and in the harvested seed of soybean varieties.